Navigating the digital informal economy during the COVID-19 pandemic: vignettes of Sri Lankan micro- and small-scale entrepreneurs

Abstract

ABSTRACT Globally, women have been disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the impact has varied between groups of women, women in the informal sector, mainly those managing micro- and small-scale businesses, have been severely affected. Drawing on the case of urban Sri Lanka, this paper explores the challenges that women owners of micro- and small-scale businesses faced during the pandemic and how they leveraged digital technologies to overcome these challenges. The paper adopts a feminist intersectional lens, which examines the everyday experiences of women in gendered economies through semi-structured interviews conducted in three phases during the pandemic. The first section of the paper details the challenges that women faced during the pandemic, including issues of mobility, competing care responsibilities, lack of institutional support, financial security, and health. The second section discusses how women used digital tools such as social media to overcome these challenges. The paper argues that although digital tools were initially used in response to the challenges posed by the pandemic, they have been permanently incorporated into everyday entrepreneurial practices of women.